I'm noticing something that scares me but also... interests me. Here's what I found.
Many, not all, but many early Christians believed they would enjoy paradise on this earth, like Jehovah's Witnesses talk about today. In the (lost, so conveniently) writings of the church father Papias who lived in late 1st and early 2nd century Turkey he records traditions he heard from people who knew "elders," early church leaders about the eschaton, that's the term they used, the eschaton, paradise, the world to come in and on this earth, in the body, of the body. Papias said that these elders said that Jesus used to say, The day will come when every vine will grow a thousand clusters and things like it, the wheat would multiply, the animals would do what we wanted them to do, a lot of people herded back then for a living, that kind of thing appealed to people where they were, in the living they made. As much wine and wheat as they wanted, that's what John the Elder and some other elder named Aristion we know next to nothing about promised people. Not every Christian group thought like that, believed like that, but many early Chrsitian elders preached this kind of thing to their communities. That's why in 2 Peter and in other early Christian texts the authors make remarks about people saying, When is the kingdom coming, you promised us a kingdom, when is it coming? And then the writers always give some nonsense explanation like A day with the Lord is a thousand years, it's all nonsense, that's all it is. It's nonsense. Empty promises and empty lies, the kingdom never came, they promised a kingdom, what kingdom? Where is it?
It's the same thing today with Jehovah's Witnesses. Their leaders promise them a kingdom. They say do what we want, live your life how we want you to live your life, be who we want you to be, fuck how we want you to fuck (or not fuck), go where we want you to go say what we want you to say so on and so forth and if, if, and only if you do what we want, you'll get paradise, because we got the keys to paradise, do what we tell you and we'll let you in, you'll own mansions in the mountains and your own vineyards with fields and sculptured patios and waterfalls, you'll travel internationally, you'll enjoy free time and leisure and relaxation like you've never known in this life, it's in the old magazines and literature from the 1980s, that Revelation book they no longer print, and they still print it today, they pay people to draw their promises and they print it in their literature, it's in Listen to God and Live Forever, it's in the Bible Teach book, it's everywhere. They make those promises, Russell, Rutherford, Knorr, Fred Franz, the Governing Body, all of them, they make these empty promises to people and they never come true and they just pretend they didn't say those things, it's so cold and clinical and vile. It's naked commercialism. How can they stand up there on that stage and confidently tell an audience that Armageddon is right around the corner, how long can they say it before people stop believing it? But they keep saying it and they keep printing it and people keep believing it.
So here's the question: how long can they do it?
Here's the answer: this is the history of Christianity. This is where it came from, the same naked lies, generation unto generation, maybe it didn't start that way, maybe there was a Jesus figure I don't know but these elders hijacked his message fast if there was and they packaged it and sold it to people to get them to do what they wanted, to feed them and clothe them and respect them.
We won't let them get away with it any more. That's what we're doing on this forum, we're not letting them get away with it anymore. We're staying strong, together, united, exposing them for what they are. We are strong together. We are so strong. We make each other strong.
This is to the New Year, to 2019. This is to me, this is to us. Don't give them another second of your time, don't waste another minute on people who will drop you like a hot potato the moment you live your life for you. Those people aren't your friends, they're not my friends either, I'm not a Jehovah's Witness but I've had people in my life like that, I dropped them. I'm done with that. Anybody out there, any PIMOs, get out while you can. Get out now while you have so much of life ahead of you, however long that is, a year, a decade, it doesn't matter. Get out and live this life for you.
Here's to me. Here's to us. Here's to the future. Cheers.